Artist Ethel Sands was born in Newport, Rhode Island, but her parents settled in England in her infancy. They became members of the Marlborough House set and close friends of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Sands became a painter on the advice of John Singer Sargent, trained under Eugene Carriere in Paris, and became a disciple, patron and friend of Walter Sickert. Here she appears to be working in the French tradition of Daumier and Vuillard.

Current affairs

Sir Oswald Mosley forms the British Union of Fascists. Mosley's party - nicknamed the Black Shirts after their uniform - was founded along the lines of Mussolini's Fascist Party in Italy and called for the replacement of parliamentary democracy with a system of elected executives. During the war Mosley was interned and the BUF was proscribed.

Art and science

John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton 'split the atom'. In fact, Cockcroft and Walton's achievement was to change the nucleus of one element into another by bombarding it with protons, rather than to literally spit an atom apart. Nevertheless 'splitting the atom' has become the popular way of describing this important stage in the development of nuclear technology.

International

Saudi Arabia is formed by the unification of the Kingdoms of Hijaz and Nejd under King Abdul Aziz.Iraq is granted independence from the British mandate established by the League of Nations in 1919-20.

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